WILL THE SCHEME OF SINCERE BUT MISGUIDED ENTHUSIASTS RESULT IN A WORLD-EMBRACING RELIGIOUS DESPOTISM?
“Christ refused to be crowned king of this world while here upon earth, and He has delegated no set of men to start a similar movement to make Him sovereign of the world as it now is. Any attempt to do so must inevitably result in oppression and tyranny.”
ON Friday, July 31, 1914, with the setting of the sun, the old world order passed away. The alliances and ententes, with their secret understandings between royal families and cabinets, arranged with so much shrewd diplomacy by the Palmerstons, the Bismarcks, the Disraelis, proved an utter failure; and this order of things passed away forever, like a dream of the night. A wholly new order, born of new necessities, and inspired with entirely new ideals, is even now in its birth throes, while an amazed world stands watching to see what this new order will be like.
I have been quoting the ideas, almost the direct language, of Dr. Nicholas Murray Butler, president of the largest university in America, given one evening last fall to a group of college men in Philadelphia.
THE SCHEME OF A FEDERATED HUMANITY
The world is ready for a new order of things, an order in which each nation must lay aside some of its narrow, petty concerns, even a large share, it may be, of its private rights and privileges, that they may form a true world alliance, a world federation. The problem of just how this shall be done is yet to be solved; but the working out of this problem is the next thing in order before the world, and on its solution hangs the future of mankind. Such is Dr. Butler’s argument; and he declares that, as we here in the United States have already solved the problem of federating together a scattered group of states with widely differing ideals and interests, we are the ones to point the way out of the wilderness, the chaos of the present condition, to that fair land of promise whose verdant hills and smiling valleys we see just beyond the smoke and carnage of the present conflict.
It is a splendid dream, a soul-elevating vision, in the minds of all those who believe in the perfectibility of the human race. From the days of Kant and his scheme of a federated humanity, from the days when Southey and Coleridge were building “out of cloud and moonbeam” their poetic kingdom of a pantisocracy [the government of all, by all], this vision has hypnotized the minds of many of the great thinkers of the world.
And while all such schemes founded on the doctrine of the development of the race or the perfectibility of the species have received a rude shock from the spectacle of the present titanic struggle, the vision itself cannot be laid by any such exhibition of international brutality and ruffianism; for it has its basis in longings and hopes that are rooted deep in the spiritual nature of mankind. And unless I have misunderstood my Bible, and have misinterpreted all the signs of the age on which we are now entering, this scheme of a world federation will be revived with a whirlwind of enthusiasm as soon as the present conflict is over.
THE BLIND LOGIC OF FANATICISM
The hope of such a period of world-wide brotherhood may be good and admirable in itself; but history shows that such a scheme can never be brought about except under the hot-house stimulation of some fanatical religious or semi-religious doctrine. And history also shows that there is nothing more dangerous for civil and religious liberty than such an idealistic doctrine applied in a concrete way to the solving of national and international political problems. As Prof. John Dewey expresses it, we are all familiar with the danger of men’s trying to impose their wills on other men under the claim of being themselves the special agents and instruments of Deity.
But the danger is equally great when an idealistic philosophy, like that which we are now dealing with, is substituted for a divine Providence. Such “ideals” have a remarkable way of ignoring the lessons of history, of even denying all the rights and legal guarantees established to protect minorities. They seem to render their advocates the mere tools of unseen forces, blind followers of a “logic of fanaticism” which drives them to sanction the most horrible crimes and the most inhuman injustice in the name of the higher “ideal” which they believe they are following.
No persecution of any consequence was ever perpetrated except at the bidding of what the persecutors believed to be the demands of Providence for the general good of the whole, or290for the promotion of the kingdom of God on earth. And when the leaders of the modern world are wearied of their slaughter, others will arise determined to improve the opportunity to federate humanity into a union for the establishment of the kingdom of God on earth.
How is it possible for any such danger to result from this apparently harmless plan to end war and establish international good feeling again? Let us go back just about a hundred years.
THE PEACEMAKER OF EUROPE
At the close of the Napoleonic wars, the emperor Alexander of Russia found himself the most powerful sovereign in Europe. He had long brooded over the horrors of war and the sufferings of the oppressed lower classes; and he now resolved to do something for the world that would mark a new era in the life of humanity. At the burning of Moscow, in 1812, he declared that he had received a direct inspiration from heaven, and a commission to become the peacemaker of Europe.
In the autumn of the next year, he had met the baroness de Krüdener, and under the influence of her teachings,—partly spiritualistic and partly pantheistic,—he had found entire peace of soul, and a more direct enlightenment as to his mission. And “during the campaign that ended in the occupation of Paris, the imperial prayer meetings were the oracle on whose revelations hung the fate of the world.” (‘Encyclopædia Britannica,’ volume 1, page 558, eleventh edition.)
This baroness de Krüdener was a fanatical believer in the soon coming of Christ and the impending coming of the kingdom of God; and under her inspiration,—though the czar himself seemingly needed little help or encouragement along this fanatical line,—the celebrated international treaty or proclamation called “the Holy Alliance” was given to the world. And in view of the circumstances under which this idea was conceived, as well as in view of the changed outcome of this plan of international federation which really resulted in binding more firmly the shackles upon the oppressed people of the continent, this Holy Alliance is well worthy of our study at the present time.
THE WORK OF MISGUIDED ENTHUSIASTS
It was originally a compact entered into by the sovereigns of Austria, Prussia, and Russia, the others, however, being but puppets in the hands of the powerful Alexander. And its general character can be well imagined by the preliminary heading or motto, “In the name of the most holy and indivisible Trinity.” It set forth that they were determined “to take for their sole guide the precepts of that holy religion” which they all professed, and that they would ever consider themselves all as “members of one and the same Christian nation,” the three sovereigns regarding themselves as merely delegates of Providence, the Christian world having “in reality no other sovereign than Him to whom alone all power belongs.” And it cordially invited all the powers of earth to unite with these three sovereigns in establishing international peace and good will. And ultimately all the sovereigns of Europe except the pope, the sultan, and the king of England signed this strange document.
We may smile at this affair; but there is no shadow of doubt that in its beginnings it was the work of sincere though misguided enthusiasts. The czar Alexander was clear-headed enough to see that this scheme logically involved the granting of liberal constitutions by all princes to their peoples; but the trend of the world’s course was too strong for him, and that which he had devised in his religious zeal for the good of the people of Europe resulted in several long decades of tyranny and oppression secured and made doubly strong by the pseudo-religious sanctions behind it.
A SOUL-CRUSHING DESPOTISM
Surely the lesson is for us. Whenever we see any persons or any set of persons trying to establish the kingdom of Christ in this present order of the world, it is time for us to look out. And when we see this thing attempted on a world-wide scale, with all the blare of international trumpeting and world-wide enthusiasm, as will surely be the case at the close of this war, or as soon as a little lull is discernible in the tumult, then it will be time for the whole world to look out.
Soon after the Deluge, the people attempted to form a stable and true federation of all humanity, to prevent a scattering abroad on the face of the earth and the development of individualism. The Lord interfered and stopped that Babel scheme, for He saw that such a plan would result in a great soul-crushing despotism that would effectually banish liberty from the earth. But with the Lord, all things are accomplished in the fullness of time. And in the end of the ages, when sin has run its course, when men have shown their determined disregard of the principles of His word, He may allow men to show, for a little season, what they can and will do in their own way and apart from Him.
But Christ refused to be crowned king of this world while here upon earth, and He has delegated no set of men to start a similar movement to make Him sovereign of the world as it now is. Any attempt to do so must inevitably result in oppression and tyranny.
